{"id":308,"date":"2021-04-22T15:04:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T20:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/?p=308"},"modified":"2021-04-26T15:06:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T20:06:44","slug":"the-4-22-21-urologic-oncologist-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/2021\/04\/22\/the-4-22-21-urologic-oncologist-update\/","title":{"rendered":"The 4\/22\/21 Urologic Oncologist Update…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This update ranks up near the top, as far as my Top 10 LEAST favorite ones to send\u2026<\/p>\n

And yet I will preface this with, it\u2019s also yet another time that God\u2019s graciousness and mercy has been shown to us. So, there\u2019s always that side of tribulation in this world to look forward to!
\"A<\/p>\n

My mom and dad were able to come up and stay with Jonah while Tamara came with me to the appointment in Ann Arbor. Their presence was comforting, and they brought fresh tulips for Tamara from the gardens in Fort Wayne. My sister (also dealing with some injuries) sent flowers from her yard, as well. It\u2019s just great to have family that loves you, you know?! This alleviated the stress of having a 4-year-old to worry about in a medical facility, which is not small. Jonah tried to keep up with Grampa and Grandma, but they won, and he took a good nap! <\/p>\n

\"AThe day came preloaded with bittersweet memories of Maggie\u2019s passing. Tamara\u2019s mom died 4 years ago, and she is still dearly missed. A lot of heavy stuff to kick the day off with, but mom and dad\u2019s arrival brought flowers and extra hugs, and we made it out the door on time. Now, the drive was a little extra ridiculous because 4\/22\/21 was apparently the day when they shut I-94 down to one lane (both ways!) AND they closed the bridge going OVER I-94 so we had to add an extra 5-mile detour to the trip. But, thanks to all my years as a lead footed teenage boy and pizza\/auto parts\/ pharmacy delivery driver, I was able to make up for lost time and arrive alive at the appointment on time. I do not think it helped my blood pressure reading, but we were there and checked in when they called us back. <\/p>\n

Which brings us to ANOTHER bit of grace. Since it\u2019s only 2021 and there are still a lot of people dealing with the realities of COVID, we were unsure if they\u2019d let Tamara in with me. They initially said she\u2019d have to wait in the car, but when they saw the purpose of the visit, the lady at the door passed a sympathetic fist bump through the plexiglass and said, \u201cJust stay really close and don\u2019t ask again. You just act like you\u2019re supposed to be there with him.\u201d So that\u2019s what we did. I was super grateful that she was there, because cystic lesions in your kidney are kind of a big deal.<\/p>\n

The doctor was clearly in high demand. He came in more than an hour after our appointment but was super apologetic and jumped right in to explaining what they could see from the scans and a probable plan of attack, in simple English, instead of \u201cdoctor-ese.\u201d After that, he asked if we were interested in the \u201cnitty -gritty details\u201d and when we said yes, he jumped into that. Then we got into the actual MRI and CT scans and sagittal views of the kidney and longitudinal scans and transversely aligned kidneys and anucleate cysts and positive margins and possible likelihoods of renal failure and a lot of other \u201cnitty gritty details\u201d that further emphasize the fact that we could spend a whole lot of time talking about what we think this might look like, but until he gets \u201cin there\u201d and starts, it\u2019s all theoretical. He seems very familiar with kidneys in general, and he\u2019d spent time looking at mine, specifically. I feel confident that the 2-3 hours he\u2019ll likely spend locating and then removing the cyst on my kidney will be beneficial to my long-term health. The follow-up treatment will most likely be very similar to what we\u2019ve been doing since 2018; yearly scans and bloodwork to make sure that there is nothing extra growing where it shouldn\u2019t be. These will be done concurrently with the scans for the previous cancer. <\/p>\n

\"AAgain, and certainly not to downplay the seriousness of this surgical procedure, we really can\u2019t be 100% confident that this WILL BE the complete and\/or final medical conversation about cancer, or my kidneys. Family medical histories are very revealing, and the Mathew side of the family has a very strong history of having kidneys! Almost all of us were born with them, and a bunch of us have had issues with them. We\u2019ve got a good collection of stone producers and in combination with essential hypertension, we have \u201ckidney issues.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So basically, what we know, until we learn more, is this: <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I need to have a partial nephrectomy.<\/li>\n
  2. Dr. Weizer prefers robotic surgery, so this will most likely be robotic.<\/li>\n
  3. We will have the surgery after Memorial Day.<\/li>\n
  4. The surgery will likely take about 2-3 hours.<\/li>\n
  5. Recovery could require 4 to 12 weeks.<\/li>\n
  6. Our move date may need to be pushed back, due to the surgical timeline.<\/li>\n
  7. We should have a surgery date within the next few days.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This update ranks up near the top, as far as my Top 10 LEAST favorite ones to send\u2026 And yet I will preface this with, it\u2019s also yet another time that God\u2019s graciousness and mercy has been shown to us. So, there\u2019s always that side of tribulation in this world to look forward to! My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2052,66895],"tags":[121661,1234],"class_list":{"0":"post-308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-news-article","8":"category-prayer-details","9":"tag-cancer-news","10":"tag-medical","11":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joshua-mathew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}